Publications by authors named "Sebastian Weyn Banningh"

Background: Vietnam's mental health care system is undergoing significant changes since the government has initiated large-scale programs to reform and develop the mental health care infrastructure. Cultural belief systems on mental illnesses influence help-seeking behavior and compliance. This study investigates the belief systems about people with schizophrenia and depression among people living in the Hanoi area.

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Multiple evidence in rodents shows that the strength of excitatory synapses in the cerebral cortex and hippocampus is greater after wake than after sleep. The widespread synaptic weakening afforded by sleep is believed to keep the cost of synaptic activity under control, promote memory consolidation, and prevent synaptic saturation, thus preserving the brain's ability to learn day after day. The cerebellum is highly plastic and the Purkinje cells, the sole output neurons of the cerebellar cortex, are endowed with a staggering number of excitatory parallel fiber synapses.

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Sleep has been hypothesized to rebalance overall synaptic strength after ongoing learning during waking leads to net synaptic potentiation. If so, because synaptic strength and size are correlated, synapses on average should be larger after wake and smaller after sleep. This prediction was recently confirmed in mouse cerebral cortex using serial block-face electron microscopy (SBEM).

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Human foetuses and newborns smile first during sleep, before they smile while awake and interacting with caregivers. Whether smiling persists during adult sleep, and expresses inner joy, is yet unknown. Smiles were looked for during night-time video-polysomnography combined with electromyography of the zygomatic and orbicularis oculi muscles in 100 controls, 22 patients with sleepwalking and 52 patients with rapid eye movement (REM) sleep behaviour disorder.

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This study sought to determine if there is any overlap between the two major non-rapid eye movement and rapid eye movement parasomnias, i.e. sleepwalking/sleep terrors and rapid eye movement sleep behaviour disorder.

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